HYDROPHOBIA. 401 



ture. For several successive hours, perhaps, the dog returns 

 to his basket or bed. He shows no disposition to bite, and 

 he answers the call upon him haggardly. He is curled up, 

 his face buried between his paws and his breast. At length 

 he begins to be fidgety. He searches out new resting-places, 

 but he very soon changes them for others. He takes again 

 to his own bed, but he is continually shifting his posture. 

 He begins to gaze strangely about him whilst lying on the 

 bed. His countenance is clouded and suspicious. He comes 

 to one and another of the family, and he fixes on them a 

 steadfast gaze, as if he would read their very thoughts. " I 

 feel strangely ill," he seems to say; "have you anything to 

 do with it? or you, or you?" Has not a dog mind enough for 

 this ? If we have observed a rabid dog at the commencement 

 of the disease, we have seen this to the very life.' 



It is not invariably easy to detect nascent hydrophobia. 

 In the year 1813 a child attempted to rob a dog of its morn- 

 ing food, and, the animal resisting the theft, the child was 

 slightly bitten. No one imagined danger. Eight days after- 

 wards rabies appeared in the dog : the malady ran its course, 

 and the animal died. A few days afterwards the child sick- 

 ened : undoubted characteristics of rabies were observed; they 

 ran their course, and the child was lost. 



Thus much as regards the incipient stage of rabies in 

 dogs. As the disease advances, the peculiar characteristic 

 of dreamy delirious contemplativeness evidences itself. The 

 dog will sit by the hour, alternately watching small, or, it 

 may be, wholly imaginary objects strewn on the ground, 

 motes in the air, nails in the door of his kennel; then dozing, 

 only to wake in terror, and stare and doze and dream again, 

 often bending his eyes long at a stretch, following the gazed- 

 at object, if it be movable, by turning his head. 



The animal's breathing will quicken, his eyes will glare, 

 and, impressed by some feeling of terror, he will spring at 

 the object, and try to seize it between his teeth. Yet it is 



DD 



